words

Franz Kafka // “I was ashamed of myself when I realized that life was a costume party, and I attended with my real face.”

Pablo Picasso // “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”

"Do you want to brainstorm or for me to just listen?"

On advice to young founders:

"Make something you yourself want. Turn off the filter that it has to be a startup idea initially, or you'll lop off the outliers. When you've thought of something, start building, and get a version 1 in front of your friends as soon as you can.



\- Paul G

Things get more refined as you make mistakes. I’ve had a chance to make a lot of mistakes. Your aesthetics get better as you make mistakes. But the real big thing is: if you’re going to make something, it doesn’t take any more energy—and rarely does it take more money—to make it really great. All it takes is a little more time. And a willingness to do so, a willingness to persevere until it’s really great.

– Steve Jobs

“Energy is the most contagious currency in the universe. It spreads like wildfire, affecting everyone it touches. Use it wisely.” — Rhonda Byrne⁠

Kurt Vonnegut // "I couldn’t help wondering if that was what God put me on Earth for––to find out how much a man could take without breaking."

David Ogilvy // "Hard work never killed a man. Men die of boredom, psychological conflict, and disease. They do not die of hard work."

Georgia O'Keeffe // "I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at — not copy it."

Complexity happens by default.
Simplicity happens by design.

“Keep breaking your heart until it opens.” — Rumi

not interested in shortcuts
never been never will

i rather upfront the pain
so i can earn the wisdom

in full price
no discounts

i don’t believe
there’s any other way

don’t show me these fake threads
they never took the exam

they are cheating
with their answers

the lessons are not theirs
they are copying others

- by blank resident

“How strange and foolish is man. He loses his health in gaining wealth. Then to regain health he wastes his wealth. He ruins his present while worrying about his future – but weeps in the future by recalling his past. He lives as though death shall never come to him, but dies in a way as if he were never born"

“Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.” — Miyamoto Musashi

“I have lived with several Zen masters — all of them cats.”

“No tree can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.”  —Carl Jung

The greater the doubt, the greater the awakening; the smaller the doubt, the smaller the awakening. No doubt, no awakening.

Oscar Wilde // “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”

The sound of silence is never the wrong one.

If you see beauty in something, don't wait for others to agree.

“People try to cut back everything after it has flowered, but you lose a lot of depth or interest and beauty that way,”

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.



It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.



It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon.



I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.



I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.



I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.



It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.



I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.



If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.



I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.



I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’



It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.



It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.



It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.



I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

I think it's ambitious to work on your small ideas, to work on things that will make your and your loved ones' lives a little bit better



Love &amp; Obsession

“When you love someone, you can’t just tell them,” she said. “What do you mean?” her friend asked.

“If you say ‘I love you’, how are they supposed to understand? It’s like trying to comprehend the universe.

You have to show them quietly. A coffee. An extra day off. Room to stand under the same umbrella.

Take the universe apart and give them the stars.”